A Sweet Little Herd, And It Will Never Work

So I shoved him with my foot, because what else was I supposed to do?

Bosco had Oatcake’s back leg between his horns and twisted it until Oatcake fell on the ground crying. We were yelling at Bosco, and so I shoved him with my foot and squirted him with a squirt bottle and he let go. Oatcake lay there, all dressed up and sad. I was so angry at Bosco and so upset for my darling Oatcake.

He hobbled over to the fence and laid down. Mom took off his outfit and we decided to leave him home. We packed some weight on Bosco since he was being an asshole, and then Sharkey ran under the motorcycle ramp and got it caught on his saddle. He ran around the yard hollering and dragging that thing around with him until we finally caught him. Then he was so upset about his motorcycle ramp encounter that Jon Snow got all worked up and slammed into him sideways until his saddlebags went all cattywampus. So then we had to chase Jon Snow all over the place and get his gear all situated again and put his saddle back on his back where it was supposed to be.

What Is This Shit? Sophie peppered the morning for the seventy-seventh time. What the fuck is happening here? -Ai-yi-yi-yi!

We made it halfway down the street.

It’ll never work, said the voice on the other end of the phone. You have A Sweet Little Herd but I’ve talked to the experts and your goats don’t have the endurance training or the weight needed to do the PCT two months from now.

We’re not doing the PCT in two months, I told the vet. We’re doing the TRT.

Doesn’t matter. Too many miles, she said. Well that’s disappointing, I said. Yeah but you can still take them on little walks, the vet said.

I hung up and told Sophie and waited for her head to explode.

The vet never asked about our previous hiking experience. About my experience with the PCT. Never asked how many miles we planned on doing per day. How many days off we plan to take. How many resupplies we were getting. How much weight the goats were going to carry. How lush we expected the forage to be. What we were expecting about anything. Nothing.

Just – no. It’ll Never Work.

Well if I had a quarter for every time someone told me that in my life…

I bet some of those experts are the same folks whom I spoke with early on. The ones who tried to sell me kids and told me the only way I’d ever be able to pack was to buy kids and bottle feed them and raise them for four years and then try it. The same ones who already told me I’d never be able to make it work.

The same ones who told us we’d never possibly get as far as we already have.

The ones we already proved wrong.

We made it about a mile before Bosco threw himself down on the trail and wouldn’t get up.

Sophie thought he was being a petulant child. I thought he’d heard what the vet said. Either way, he wouldn’t get up for a while. A mile later, he did it again. I was worried. Attitude problem and now laying down on the trail? Maybe he didn’t feel good, I thought.

Maybe he doesn’t feel good. I said. Maybe he has worms or something. We did get him from California, after all. Maybe his feet are tender since they just got clipped.

Maybe he’s just obstinate. Sophie said.

Regardless, we turned around and went home. Jon Snow took a knee twice on the way. What, now he listened to the vet too? He was barely carrying anything. Sharkey just clomped along with his ears in his eyes, happy to be out in the sage.

Since we got back so early, we went to Cal-Ranch and bought de-wormer and more calf-manna and Sophie found a measuring tape that you put around a goat just under his armpits and over his back and it tells you how much he weighs. Why the fuck didn’t the vet tell us about this? Sophie held it aloft. And why didn’t she have one? It was only $8.00.

We ate lunch and weighed the goats. Jon Snow was 125, Sharkey was 115, Bosco was 145, and Oatcake – who was totally fine – was 220 pounds. We practiced putting up the high line and low line which we will tie the goats to at night on trail and we talked about our next moves. Our viable options.

And then the fury and sadness over the whole thing sank into my soul and the tinkling glass of my heart breaking echoed in my ears and Sophie told me everything was okay and we would figure it out but all I saw was red. And I was too mad to cry.

So she bought me a vanilla shake and took me home.